


Live

by signifying_nothing



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: EW almost but didn't happen, Full Feelings Nasty, Hurt/comfort kind of, M/M, a getting together type of story kind of, brief descriptions of violence, learning to cope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-12-01 00:36:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11474925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/signifying_nothing/pseuds/signifying_nothing
Summary: “If it was anyone but you, Yuy,” he says, his voice rasping and hoarse. “I'd have shot you.”“You're full of it,” Heero says, moving closer. Wufei is sweaty, his lips are chapped. “You can't even lift a gun right now.”





	Live

**Author's Note:**

> hi guys yes did i mention that i'm somewhat prolific

Heero Yuy has wartime reflexes that make cats look clumsy and inattentive. Heero Yuy can bench press more than his weight, he can run a mile in less than four minutes on his best days, and his skills with weaponry and information technologies are second to none.

But Heero Yuy has been halted mid-movement, deaf to the screams of a firefight. His muscles feel like they're full of acid, aching, and Heero Yuy is watching as Chang Wufei takes a bullet through the belly and gets back up again, even when it doesn't come out the other side of his body.

It's not that Wufei is hurt, Heero is used to that. Wufei is, as Duo calls him, the _melee man,_ whereas Heero and Trowa are more apt to do damage from a distance, with handguns or sniper rifles, respectively. Wufei charges in, either with a sword or bare-handed, and he cuts down the front line of defense, that's what he does. Heero has always secretly thought it was some kind of coping mechanism, some kind of control tick that Wufei couldn't express in any other way.

(Heero is learning a lot about expressing, about being less of a weapon and more of a person but it's a slow and painful process, if he's honest. He doesn't like it very much, but he supposes that not liking it, instead of being ambivalent to it, is progress enough to show that it's working.)

Regardless. Heero is watching Chang Wufei take a bullet to the belly. He's watching him get up, watches his hands move like lightning, his legs just as fast, like he hasn't just been shot.

 _Chang!_ Duo's voice comes through Heero's earpiece. _Holy shit, what are you doing?!_

Wufei doesn't answer, of course he doesn't, he's still moving. Like mercury, or oil through water, he is moving, he is killing, he is cutting down the enemy like they are underbrush and he is a machete wielded by the Preventers. He turns a half-circle, snaps out a smart kick to one mans groin before meeting that same mans chin with his palm, then his sternum with his opposite fist. The mans gun clatters to the ground and Wufei stops.

_Chang! Damn it, Wufei, get out of there!_

Wufei is turning his head this way and that. His hair has come loose from it's low braid; Duo has been putting it back for him at work when he first comes in and his hair is still damp. It's puzzling to Heero, that Wufei can't braid. His hair has gotten so long that it seems... Nonsensical. Perhaps that's because he's known Duo for twelve long years of his life and is accustomed to seeing people with long hair wearing that hair in a plait. Regardless, Wufei's hair is loose. It's loose and sweaty and there is blood dripping down his chin. Even from thirty yards away, Heero can see that Wufei's entire body is thrumming with adrenaline. He likely can't feel the pain. The bullet is probably lodged somewhere in his muscle or at least... he hopes it's in Wufei's muscles. If it's already hit his internal organs they're going to have to air-lift him out of here.

...They're going to have to air-lift him out of here. Wufei is falling to the ground on his knees, coughing, holding his stomach, trying to keep upright, likely to keep the bullet from wiggling in any further. Heero has wartime reflexes and can run a mile in four minutes, so when he skids to a stop Wufei doesn't look surprised to see him there.

“Yuy,” he says, and there is blood on his teeth and tongue, though his voice is surprisingly steady. “I've been shot.”

“I can see that,” Heero hisses out, putting one hand on Wufei's back, pressing the other against the sound and trying to feel out the bullet. He can't feel it. Must have gone deeper than he thought.

“Jacket,” Wufei says, staring at Heero like he can't see him, his eyes dangerously unfocused. “S'in deep. My kidneys.”

“Has it hit one yet?” Heero asks, and Wufei takes a moment to shake his head.

“Hurts.”

Heero can't really hear the helicopter. Chang Wufei is twenty-seven and getting pushed onto a gurney with a bullet wound to the belly and blood on his mouth. Heero knows the chances of survival are fairly good, even if the bullet has struck his kidneys or gone through his intestinal tract. Their bodies were modified to be able to take such abuse. Still, it doesn't push the visual from his mind. Wufei moving like mercury, bleeding from the mouth and stomach, probably going into shock as he sits on his knees beside Heero, who is the only thing holding him upright.

The rest of the mission is a blur. Heero kills more people than he's meant to and when Trowa comes to find him, he points his gun straight at his head before realizing who he is looking at. He offers the gun to his friend, and Trowa waves him up and out toward the SUV that will take them back to the house they've been using as headquarters for this operation.

Heero presses his finger to his earpiece. _Is Chang in one piece,_ he asks. For a moment there is silence and then, Duo's voice.

_For now._

><><><><

When Heero walks into the conference room, it's to Sally Po giving Wufei a lecture about how dangerous it is to move after receiving a traumatic injury, and how absolutely foolish he is to have kept going when he knew he'd been shot. Wufei is crossing his arms and.. Not quite _scowling._ He just looks very put-upon and to Heero's eyes, exhausted. It's only been a day since they'd come back and Wufei is already up and moving—so he hadn't been shot in the kidney after all, or they'd managed to get the bullet out before it did too much damage.

He still looks very tired.

“—and _furthermore—_ ”

“ _Woman_ ,” Wufei barks, visibly agitated. He always falls back into old habits when he's had enough and he has, apparently, had enough. “I have gone through treatment, and I would most appreciate if you could _shut the fuck up._ ”

The addition of vulgarity to Wufei's already quite extensive vocabulary had been Duo's doing, and he grinned behind Heero, clearly delighted at Wufei's use of the words he'd taught. Sally throws her hands into the air and stalks out, making sure to fix all of them with a glare before she leaves. Wufei takes a deep breath, stops himself halfway through, and leans back into the chair.

“She's worrying over nothing,” he says, as though to cut off any protests that Sally may be correct in her assumptions that he's not being completely truthful with her as far as his condition is concerned.

“I heard you were bleeding pretty bad, 'Fei,” Duo says, sitting down at the conference table and crossing his arms and his legs. “How long were you down?”

“Couple of hours,” Wufei replies, visibly relaxing now that his only company is the other pilots.

It strikes Heero as rather ironic that of the five of them, Wufei is the one most uncomfortable with anyone who isn't... One of them. He'd have thought that honor would go to himself, or perhaps Trowa, sitting silently beside him. But no... No, it was Wufei, who couldn't seem to let go of violence, who wouldn't stop practicing forms, who trained for at least four hours a day, more than that when he wasn't on a mission or chained to his desk doing operations and logistics. Wufei, whose reputation as an asocial shut-in has become legendary throughout most of the Preventers upper officers, and about whom wild rumours spread through lower-level agents like he is some kind of monster under the bed. Heero and Trowa have reputations of course, but Wufei's has been... Perhaps irreparably damaged by his actions, though he doesn't seem to care.

“There's no internal damage. As I said, she's worrying for nothing.”

“You got lucky,” Trowa says, and his voice is low. Wufei looks over at him as though daring him to speak another word and Trowa shrugs, easily. “It's the truth. If he'd been any more skilled you'd be dead right now.”

“Well, he wasn't.” That's the end of the discussion, Heero knows. _Ends justify means,_ he thinks. Wufei would, in all probability, willingly throw himself into the line of fire, but Heero has a suspicion that Wufei's _ends_ have less to do with peacekeeping across the colonies and the earth itself and more to do with ending up, as Trowa had said, dead.

Wufei is _not_ suicidal, Heero is fairly sure. Not in the way that he is aware of. Passively suicidal, probably. It's not that he's going to jump off a bridge, but he is willing to throw himself into a firefight where more caution would have been prudent. He is willing to get hurt not for the sake of peace, but to keep his friends out of harms way, even if it means his death. Possibly even _preferably_ if it means his death.

Somehow, Heero thinks that's worse. He wonders if he's the only one who sees it for what it truly is, and thinks that the other ex-pilots can't possibly be that _stupid._ Or perhaps they are. None of them are really emotionally up to snuff, as it were, except Quatre. And even he has his moments of blunt insensitivity.

They go through the mission debriefing. More of the enemy dead than they had expected, but that's neither here nor there. None of the men they needed to question had been killed, thanks to Trowa. Wufei had been the only one to sustain major injuries.

 _As usual,_ Heero thinks, a storm cloud rolling slowly over his mood. It gets worse and worse as they move through the motions—the four of them sign the documentation and Duo and Trowa practically flee from the room, where the tension has risen to an uncomfortable height and density. Wufei is looking at the paperwork, where he has just signed his name in black ballpoint pen with his left hand.

“That was stupid,” Heero says, and Wufei doesn't look at him. “You don't have to do that anymore. You shouldn't.”

“And who are you to talk to me about running headlong into the mess of things, Yuy,” Wufei asks, and though perhaps he's trying to sound angry, he just sounds so tired. “I hardly think you're one to judge me for so-called _reckless action._ ”

“That was war,” Heero says.

“I'm not having this discussion with you.”

Wufei pushes away from the table. His movements are slow, his body hunched just the slightest bit forward. He's hurting, Heero can see. His entire method of movement is centered around not disturbing the wound in his belly.

Heero stands up and pushes his palm against the heavy bandages. He hears Wufei choke on air and reach to shove him off; he grabs Wufei's wrists and pins him to the heavy cinderblock wall. “You are in no condition to be up and moving, Chang,” he says, and Wufei bares his teeth. Heero pushes his palm harder and is rewarded by Wufei taking in a gulping breath, making a small choking sound with his lips barely open. “How the hell did you get out of the infirmary.”

“Let go,” Wufei pants, his dark eyes sliding to Heero. “Let _go_ of me, Yuy. _Now._ ”

Heero lets go.

Wufei shoves him away, eyes icy and expression blank as he leaves the room—head up, shoulders back, proud. Heero says nothing about how he knows, he _knows,_ Wufei probably doubled over not twenty feet away. It's not his business to restrain Wufei if he doesn't want to be restrained. He can't stop Wufei from trying to kill himself. There's nothing to be done.

><><><><

There is a fire.

There is a fire, and the world is burning. Heero stands in the middle of it all, watching. All around him are burned timbers and thick, choking smoke. Heero watches the world burn itself to ash and stumps and is not surprised to see, when the smoke clears, a dark and trembling dragon, long body snakelike and scaled, clawed toes clasped around pearls. There is someone in front of Heero—he has a hand hooked into their mouth where there is a barrel of a gun pressed in. He doesn't manage three heartbeats before his alarm goes off and he sits up in bed, staring out over his studio apartment.

Most of the others choose one bedrooms, or perhaps two. Heero chose a studio because it allows him to see all of his space at once, and makes it nearly impossible for him to be snuck up on. His space is spartan and clean, and he looks around it with his dark eyes and wonders when the hell he got so worried about Chang Wufei, anyway. If he wants to kill himself, Heero isn't obligated to stop him. They'll lose one hell of an agent, it's true, but that's not enough reason to be having terrible dreams about it.

He takes a breath and gets out of bed. He showers, makes tea, checks his e-mail. The most recent, from Trowa, is three lines and a signature.

_Chang AWOL from base._

_Left his badge and gun._

_Check on him._

_-T._

Heero isn't exactly fond of the idea of babysitting Chang Wufei, but he also doesn't want anything bad to happen to him. So with an e-mail shot off to the appropriate authorities (Une, Po, his therapist) that he wouldn't be able to make his appointments, Heero gets dressed and heads out of his top-floor apartment, climbing down the fire escape with ease.

Wufei's apartment isn't that far. Seven miles away, closer to the outside of the city. It's more like a condo, two floors, narrow and open plan; Heero has been there twice. Once to drop off a pile of paperwork, and once to check on Wufei after an exceptionally traumatic mission that left even Heero riddled with nightmares for weeks. Wufei had seemed to have been holding together, though. He's stronger than anyone thinks. Stronger, but more brittle. One hit to the wrong place and he'll come crumbling down.

Heero wonders if that brittle place has finally been struck, as he pulls up to the house and stops his SUV. He climbs out and looks at the doorway—it faces east, is painted red. There is a windchime, tuned to the key of E, each tube of metal etched with a symbol. Six tubes. Their names. The middle piece, wooden and flat, is engraved very simply with, _fate._ He'd asked about it the last time he was here. Wufei had seemed bemused over it.

He knocks on the door, but no one answers.

He gives it exactly two minutes before he uses his spare key to let himself in. Wufei had given him the key last year when he moved in, in case of emergencies, or his death.

The inside foyer is quiet. There is the sound of a fan blowing, the gentle falsity of an ocean moving over a beach. A soundmaker, Heero realizes. The same one he has at home, a gift from Duo three years ago at Christmas, when he'd mumbled something about how, _if I can't sleep in this goddamn quiet I'm sure you fuckers ain't any better._

He follows the sound and finds Wufei on his modest and practical couch beneath the long window, perhaps asleep, cheeks blushed pink—likely with fever. Heero walks closer and Wufei speaks, his space-accented Mandarin sharp as ever.

“ _If it was anyone but you, Yuy,_ ” he says, his voice rasping and hoarse. “ _I'd have shot you._ ”

“ _You're full of it,_ ” Heero says, moving closer. Wufei is sweaty, his lips are chapped. “ _You can't even lift a gun right now._ ”

“ _Care to test that theory,_ ” Wufei says, but he's not moving fast enough—Heero reaches him easily, grabs his hand and holds him tight by the wrist before he has a chance to pull the Luger out from under the pillow his head is resting on. “ _Shit_.”

“ _Barton told me you went AWOL._ ”

“ _I didn't go AWOL, I missed a doctors appointment,_ ” Wufei replies, closing his eyes. “ _Didn't want to go. Hate it._ ”

“ _That's not a reason to get sick because of an infection._ ”

“ _S'not infected,_ ” Wufei mumbles, his fight against Heero's grip weak. “ _Checked it this morning. S'not infected. M'just..._ ”

Heero takes a breath.

“ _M'just so tired, Heero._ ”

Heero swallows. He moves, tugs Wufei up from the couch. He tries to be careful as he carries him upstairs to his bathroom, tries to make sure he doesn't get too jostled when he sits him on the counter. He pushes up Wufei's shirt to find that the bandages are clean and dry—thank god. Wufei laughs into his shoulder, his head dropped forward. His skin and hair are sweaty, though he smells clean. Heero lifts him up and carries him chest-to-chest to his bedroom, where he brings him to the low, wide mattress. It practically sits on the floor, the frame is so low, and Heero has to get on his knees to let him down without dropping him. Wufei stares out over the room and doesn't say anything as Heero pulls off his jeans and shirt, leaves him in his underwear before he pushes him under the blankets.

“You stay here,” he says. “I'm going to call and let them know where you are. And that I'm with you.”

He means it as a comfort. No one will come after them if Heero is with Wufei. They'll be left alone to tend to themselves for as long as possible and that's the way Wufei would want it, Heero thinks. He doesn't like to be babysat. He's not a child.

He is, however, a mentally exhausted and physically strung out ex-terrorist with a hair trigger and an overlarge sense of pride and a very telling history of nearly getting himself killed so he doesn't have to do it himself. So Heero is going to babysit him.

Trowa picks up on the third ring.

“Yuy.”

“I'm with him at his place. We won't be back for a while.”

“I see. Is he all right?”

Heero hesitates. He can almost _hear_ Trowa nodding.

“I see. I'll do what I can here. Take care of him.”

“I will.”

Heero isn't sure when it became his responsibility to take care of Wufei in this way. He's done it before, but never to this capacity. It's always been somewhere other than home, it's always been an immediate emergency, it's always been Wufei able to leave after a few hours of intensive care and some yelling between himself and whatever doctor was trying to get him to stay. Never like this, in Wufei's home, where he is defenseless and should feel safest and yet.

With a low grumble of frustration Heero walks back upstairs and finds Wufei right where he left him, laying in bed, staring up at the ceiling. His breathing is shallow but regular. Heero kneels beside the bed and waits for something to happen.

Wufei turns his head and looks at him. He looks terrible. Where is that fierce beast, where is that machete, that force of nature? Where is his friend? Or perhaps he's always been there, like this, and Heero just hasn't noticed. It's amazing what a coat of paint will do for an old room—it's also amazing what a mask will do to a young man. It's been twelve years. Heero had his breakdown four years after, right before Duo. Quatre had lasted a little longer, and Trowa had made it to two years ago but Wufei.

If he'd broken, none of them had been there. If he'd built himself back up, none of them are any the wiser. It strikes Heero that he isn't sure if he's even looking at the same man he knew all those years ago—the same man he's known every year since.

He's always thought Trowa was the best liar of them. Perhaps he's been wrong.

“ _Are you going to be all right?_ ” he hears himself ask. It's ridiculous. Worse is the fact that Wufei laughs at him, the sound wheezy and weak.

“ _What do you think, friend._ ”

Heero doesn't think anything at all. He gets up closer and, after a moment of hesitation, shifts to let Wufei's head rest on his thigh. He pulls his braid loose, he runs his fingers through long, fine hair. Duo likes this—it comforts him. It makes sense that it would comfort Wufei, too.

“ _I thought I was going to die,_ ” Wufei whispers. “ _I thought I wanted to._ ”

“ _You don't?_ ”

“ _No._ ” Wufei shivers out a breath, bringing his arm up to rest it across Heero's legs. Heero rearranges the blankets so no cold air slips down his back. He takes in Wufei's myriad scars, his gold skin ruined by bullets, knives and shrapnel. Fire, broken bones, a life in space that sapped the color from him. “ _Not really._ ”

“ _So why do you insist on taking unnecessary risks,_ ” Heero asks, looking down at him. Wufei tips his head and looks up at Heero and Heero wonders how a mans eyes can be so dark. “ _You're going to get killed, Wufei._ ”

Wufei gives a breathless little laugh. “ _I don't know,_ ” he says, his eyes drifting closed. “ _I don't know, Heero.”_

Wufei falls asleep and Heero sits back against the headboard, cradling his head and shoulder. He lets Wufei fall asleep, lets himself doze—wakes with Wufei starts to jerk and twist, making strange, weak noises from the back of his throat. Nightmares. Heero doesn't want to wake him, so he just does his best not to hold him down. He's learned from experience that trying to hold any of them down during a nightmare is just a good way to get a broken nose or a black eye. It's best to leave Wufei alone, and be there when he comes to.

Wufei sits up about seven minutes later, ramrod straight, panting, gulping for air and struggling to turn on a light. It's not dark in the room, just dim, but Heero turns it on for him and Wufei freezes. Holds very still.

“ _It's me,_ ” Heero murmurs. “ _It's just me._ ”

Wufei nods, blindly, and reaches out to grab Heero's sleeve, holding it tightly in a clenched fist. He takes a few deep breaths and only then does he look over at Heero, who simply gazes back at him, eyes and expression as level as he can make them. Wufei is clearly distraught. It's best not to upset him further.

“ _Are you all right_?”

He nods again, swallows hard, and his hands are shaking so much that it looks almost painful. Heero does what he thinks is best—reaches out and pulls Wufei to him, presses Wufei's head to his chest and says, very quietly, “ _Breathe. With my heartbeat, Wufei, breathe._ ”

It seems to work. Wufei takes a few deep, strangled breaths before he manages to match the rhythm and sound of Heero's heart, but he manages. He goes almost limp, exhausted, and Heero isn't entirely surprised to hear him say,

“ _I haven't slept in weeks._ ”

“ _Nightmares._ ”

“ _Nothing helps._ ”

“ _Have you told Sally._ ”

“ _She'll make me stay overnight in the hospital,_ ” Wufei whispers, sounding like speaking the words is wringing out his soul, his very being stretched thin. “ _I can't stay in the hospital overnight, Heero._ ”

“ _Why?_ ”

“ _You know why._ ”

Heero thinks about this. Yes, he supposes that hospitals would be disturbing for all of them, though that doesn't explain why Wufei would be so anxious, especially twelve years on. It would take some major trauma to—

“... _When did it happen?_ ”

“ _When Dekim..._ ”

Aah. The man had done his best to dig his claws into Wufei only to have Wufei go straight to Trowa to tell him what was happening. It was disgusting, he'd claimed, that the man was besmirching the memory of his honored enemy the way he was.

“ _You didn't say anything._ ”

“ _I didn't want to._ ” Wufei laughed, the sound weak. “ _Would you have wanted to?_ ”

“ _No._ ”

Heero lets Wufei rest against him and wonders what kind of torture he suffered at the hand of the man who had been trying to force him to his cause. Wufei had been confused at the end of the war—confused and conflicted and afraid, and he hadn't been ashamed to admit it to Heero, then—that he was terrified of peace, didn't know what to do with it, or how he would survive it. Granted, he hadn't used those _exact_ words, but his meaning had been clear enough.

They sit in silence for a very long time.

“ _I'm so tired, Heero,_ ” he whispers, and Heero nods, wraps one arm around Wufei's shoulders. Wufei curls into him... Rather easily. The same way Maxwell and Barton do. It's nice. There is a very visceral comfort that comes from being so close to one another and Heero enjoys it just as much as the rest of them, though he's not always as good at showing it.

“ _You don't need to come back, you know. No one would make you._ ”

“ _What else would I do? What does a warrior do, Heero, when there is no more war to be fought._ ” Wufei's voice is low and hollow.

“ _He learns how to live, instead of how to die._ ”

Wufei laughs and while the sound is weak and small it fills the room with a little spark of hope.

“ _Is that the recommended course of action?_ ”

“ _It's better than waiting to die, Wufei._ ”

Wufei looks up at him, and sits up. In the soft lamplight his blushed cheeks and chapped lips look softer than they are, and Heero cups his head with one hand. “ _None of us want to watch you waiting to die. There's so much more to live for._ ”

“ _Is there,_ ” Wufei asks, his expression soft. Heero nods.

“ _There is._ ”

Heero remembers having a conversation much like this one with Duo, only their positions were reversed. Now, as he leans forward very hesitantly, he feels Wufei shudder, feels something in him loosen and fall away like unneeded armor, like weight of past misdeeds. Heero leans forward, and Wufei leans to greet him, and the kiss is not soft. It is not sweet or gentle or loving but it is still a kiss and it is a promise.

_There's so much left to live for._

_I'm going to hold you to that._

 


End file.
